Education is an honorable and rewarding career

By Mike Jorgensen
Posted 8/26/20

When I entered the teaching profession in 1982, my mother was very concerned on whether or not I would find a job. 

The competition for teaching professions was very fierce and getting a foot …

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Education is an honorable and rewarding career

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When I entered the teaching profession in 1982, my mother was very concerned on whether or not I would find a job. 

The competition for teaching professions was very fierce and getting a foot in the door was not easy. 

I was fortunate that I had chosen a specialty area of business and marketing education.

When I was hired for my first teaching job at Marshalltown High School, I was one of six business/marketing teachers.   

Even in the largest districts in the state of Iowa today, you will rarely find two business/marketing teachers in a school district. In fact, many districts are in search of a certified instructor and hope to find one. 

This has been true in career and technical areas for the last 20 years.   

It has become very difficult to fill positions.

Highland CSD struggled to find a certified agriculture education instructor for several years.   

Through my connections and friendship with a retired instructor, I was able to bring a part-time instructor to the district to start up a program. 

For a couple of years, we actually had two instructors in the program. We were lucky. 

Industrial technology teachers are in short supply and family and consumer science teachers are very rare. 

Highland was fortunate to find an individual who was willing to get a temporary certification and work toward completing an endorsement in family & consumer science.   

Foreign language teachers are also very rare. This has been a struggle until recently for the Highland district.

Math and Science teachers on the secondary level, especially one’s that can teach upper level courses such as calculus and or physics are also very difficult to fill and have been so for a number of years.

Special education certifications have been a shortage area for a number of years, but fortunately there are a number of new teachers who were wise to get the endorsement to get their foot in the door.

Schools are constantly in competition for a few qualified teachers.

The “new normal” due to the COVID-19 is a teacher shortage in all areas. 

The average age of elementary teachers has been rising in recent years.   

There used to be a time even as recent as 10 years ago where if I had an elementary teaching opening advertised, I would get upwards of 100 or more applications to fill the position. 

While those numbers have been declining in recent years, the creation of a shortage has occurred in the short term. 

Across the country a number of teachers, especially senior aged teachers, have chosen to not return to the classroom. 

This has also been true in Iowa. 

The shortage is not to the level of the specialty areas mentioned earlier in the article, but the decline is such that it does raise the level of concern for administrators for the future. 

The teaching profession is an honorable career. 

I have a daughter who has chosen to go down that path.   

There are a lot of positives that go with becoming a teacher. 

Many positive experiences and relationships that last a lifetime go with becoming a teacher. 

It is a career that is not easy and requires a lot of working and continuous professional development and training.   

The education profession has evolved and will continue to change over time.   

Let’s hope we will be able to continue to recruit and find good people to enter into this profession.